1847.1 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



3^5 



interest or concern; rejects them, perhaps, with indifference and contempt; 

 pronounces tliem as useless or absurd ; or, at least, does not receive them 

 as fit and welcome objects for its study and contemplation. Even the 

 educated eye and cultivated taste of the real connoisseur before St. Mark's, 

 may fail to see and discern its beauties, and may err in the jud<;ment and 

 opinion he forms of it, by a mind unfavourably disposed towards it; 

 incapable, from its condition, of becoming the recipient of, or yielding 

 assent to, its peculiar merits; and alike incapacitated to understand and 

 enjoy them. Instead of testing a work and the qualities associated with 

 it by the particular frame and constitution of our own minds, and some 

 standard of our own therein set up, it is essential in all criiicisra of fine 

 art, to feel as the author or artist felt, to know with what idea and inten- 

 tion he was animated and possessed, and to judge according to the circum- 

 stances of the age in which it emanated, — if we would renounce partiality 

 and avoid misinterpretation. Hence, Schlegel said : " No man has so 

 deeply penetrated into the innermost spirit of Grecian art as Wiockelmann ; 

 he transformed himself completely into an ancient, and seemingly lived in 

 his own country, unmoved by its spirit and influences."* 



Admitting all the faults of St. Mark's; admitting that semi-barbaric 

 character impressed upon it by the extravagant use of costly materials, — 

 we must, at the same time, confess that to our eyes this very wilduess and 

 exuberance caused much of the pleasing emotion we experienced. We 

 thought that its architectonic forms and ornaments (faulty as they are 

 often considered to be by many Europeans) were extremely elTective ; 

 and, although the boldest that the hand of man ever ventured to employ, 

 that they were as appropriate and significant to the intentions and pur- 

 poses of St. Mark's as could possibly be conceived. Long familiarity 

 wth its peculiarities only deepened this conviction. Long familiarity did 

 not make it look ordinary or tame. But long, frequent, and intense con- 

 templation only developed its beauties, and manifested its deep symbolical 

 significance. 



It is difficult, if not impossible, to do anything like justice to St. Mark's 

 with the pen ; nor is it intended to oflTer a complete description ; — pictures 

 and dioramas can alone convey an adequate representation of its splen- 

 dour : to these we refer the reader, and we think that he will therein see a 

 corroboration of our remarks — namely, that its architecture is in admirable 

 keeping with the buildings which surround it ; and that its effect, in its 

 place and in relation to its scenery, is everything that could be desired, and 

 the principal ornament and attraction of the great Square in which it is 

 ejected. 



(To be continued.) 



* Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. 



MUNICH IN 1847. 



Somewhat extraordinary it undeniably is that no English artist or pub- 

 lisher should have thought it worth while to give us any illustrations of 

 the capital of Bavaria, for besides that no engravings of the kind — that is, 

 views of the modern, especially the recent structures at Munich, have been 

 brought out in Germany, they would have a chance of being very much 

 better executed here, there being in Germany itself no medium, apparently, 

 between very expensive and large-sized works — consequently the very re- 

 verse of popular in price or shape, and the most paltry productions con- 

 ceiveable — the very doggrel of the pencil. Munich, as it now presents it- 

 self, has been styled the Paradise of Architects, — perhaps somewhat in- 

 correctly, at least as far as English architects are concerned, since it must 

 excite in them sundry very unpalatable comparisons with not build ings 

 alone, but the general system of architectural management here at home — 

 that is, if what seems to be conducted upon no systematic scheme of ma- 

 nagement at all, can so be termed. What has been achieved of late years 

 at Munich with comparatively limited means is almost incomprehensible to 

 Englishmen ; but the great secret is, that if the means have been limited, 

 the intelligence and the will that directed them have been great and energe- 

 tic. We, on the contrary — but comparisons are odorous, as Mrs. Malaprop 

 says, therefore, perhaps, we had better drop them altogether, and forego 

 any allusions to royal taste and royal sympathy with Art, here at home. 



Among the more recent and as yet incomplete works at Munich is the 

 " Wittelsbacher Palast,'' in a style partaking of our own later medisva 1 

 architecture. The edifice is described as a quadrangular pile with four 



octangular towers rising at its corners, and with a projecting pavilion in 

 the centre of the principal fafade. The whole is partly of a warm red and 

 partly of a decidedly yellow tint, wherefore the building shows very forci- 

 bly against a clear blue sky. Another building designed by the same 

 architect (the late Professor Gartner) is the Neue I'riedhof or Cemetery, 

 forming a quadrangular iuclosure or Carapo Santo, with forty-three arches 

 on each of its longer, and forty on each of its shorter sides, consequently 

 nearly a square in its plan. All the arches are thirteen feet in width, 

 semicircular, or, to speak accurately, something more, the curve being just 

 returned below the chord, whereby a peculiar expression and lightness are 

 imparled to the arches, which rest upon octangular pillars. In the spandrel 

 surface between the arches is a medallion, and the elevations are finished 

 by a console cornice. Internally, these arcades or cloisters have rich 

 open-work timber ceilings, and thi-ir walls afford adequate spaces for both 

 pictorial and sculpturesque decoration. How vastly superior, we may re- 

 mark, such a well disposed ensemble to the paltry higgledy-piggledy ap- 

 pearance presented by our own modern cemeteries — that of Kensal Green 

 especially, with its atrociously vulgar, not to call them profane monuments, 

 recording such worthies as Pill-Morrison, St. John Long, and Ducrow 

 the equestrian — company in which no one would care to be buried, lest — 

 the readers will supply the hiatus. 



Not the least important building of all now in progress at Munich is the 

 Neue Pinakothek, which is intended for the reception of productions in 

 porcelain and glass-painting in the ground-floor rooms, and for pictures by 

 modern artists in the upper ones. This second Pinakothek, the architect 

 of which is Professor Voit, will not be so extensive an edifice as the first 

 one, its length not exceeding 308 feet, while that of the other is 520. la 

 regard to style and general form, also the arrangement of its plan, it will 

 be somewhat similar, but in the physiognomy of its principal facade will 

 be almost unique ; it being intended to decorate the whole of that its south- 

 side, above the ground-floor, with mural painting. That surface, about 300 

 feet in length, by 20 feet in height, will be divided longitudinally into com- 

 partments, so as to form a series of historical compositions, the cartoons for 

 which have been already prepared by Kaulbach. The entrance is in the 

 east front, and beyond the vestibule will be a double staircase — that is, 

 two ascents, one on each side, conducting to the upper floor, first into five 

 spacious exhibition rooms, with as many smaller ones on the south side, 

 all of which will be lighted entirely from above. On the north side of the 

 middle suite of rooms, will be fourteen cabinets, each having a side light, 

 and these will, of course, be accordingly appropriated to pictures of 

 cabinet size. On this floor the western end of the plan will be occupied 

 by a single room upwards of 90 by 50 feet. It is intended exclusively for 

 the reception of a series of landscapes by Rottmann, — a set of views in 

 Greece, which he was commissioned to paint for the king. And that 

 Rottmann's-Saal, as it is to be named, will be so peculiar in character — so 

 unlike all other picture-galleries or exhibition rooms, as to deserve here 

 such an account as we can at present give of it. It will be divided by 

 columns into twenty-four iutercolumns or compartments around its sides, 

 and of those compartments — which, we presume, will form distinct recesses, 

 after tile manner of those in the Glyptotheca of the Colosseum here in 

 London, — twenty-three will beoccupied by as many landscapes; and besides 

 that such uniform architectural arrangement is altogether uncommon in a gal- 

 lery of Ihe kind, the effect will be extraordinarily enhanced by the entirely 

 novel mode of lighting adopted for it, — one that will realise an idea which 

 we ourselves have ere now entertained. No light will be admitted directly 

 into the centre space or room itself, but only upon the walls within the 

 compartments, so that while the space in which the spectator stands will 

 be in demi-joiir, the light will be thrown upon the paintings, each of which 

 will be completely framed in, as a separate view, by the two columns be- 

 tween which it will be seen, whereby a considerable degree of illusion can 

 hardly fail to be produced. Here then is an idea that might be turned to 

 excellent account for a Panorama, since it would undoubtedly be an im- 

 provement were the " platform" at such place of exhibition enclosed by 

 columns or pillars of some kind supporting its roof. 



The Rottniann's Saal, and the five-rooms in the south-side of the build- 

 ing, as also the cabinets on the north-side, will be 20 feet high, but the five 

 rooms in the centre of the plan will be about 50 feet high to the summit 

 of their sky-lights, wherefore that portion ot the structure will form a lofty 

 mass towering above the rest of it. Besides what is going on in public 

 works, a fresh field for their talent is uow opening itself to the Munich 

 architects, several of whom, including Metzger, Biirklein, Brauumiihl, 

 Moninger, and Kreuter, have erected various private mansions that de- 

 serve to be accounted among the CBibellishments of the Bavarian capital. 



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